


Beati Pauperes Spiritu

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Belly Kink, Bowel Movement, Cleaning, Cramps, Dubious Consent, Enemas, Explicit Sexual Content, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Laxatives, Nudity, Objectification, Power Dynamics, Protective Dean Winchester, Public Nudity, Religious Abuse, Religious Content, Religious Fanaticism, Scat, Starvation, Torture, Urination, cleansing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:43:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2704271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blessed are the Poor in Spirit. Post-5.03. Outsider POV. Haunted by the voicemail and Dean’s parting words, Sam seeks answers and healing only to find that those who offer him salvation have something else planned...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beati Pauperes Spiritu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quickreaver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickreaver/gifts).



> _**A/N:**_ This originally started off as a skinny!fic prompt from my hero, **quickreaver** but has derailed into my own kinks so hard that it doesn't seem fair to gift it to her or even say it's based on her prompt. I owe you another attempt, sweetie!
> 
> A million thanks to **quickreaver** for hand-holding me via email for the better part of 2014 and for telling me it is okay to indulge in my enema kink and convincing me that this thing can be posted as-is without beta'ing. Thus, it has been edited to the best of my ability but not formally beta'd. 
> 
> Please make note of the tags for warnings.
> 
>  _ **Disclaimer:**_ Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada.

The long, lean figure on the full-size bed moans as he squirms restlessly. He draws up his legs, planting his feet flat on the sweat-damp fitted sheet. She waits, but he doesn’t try to turn onto his side or do any of the movements she expects; he’s too weak. The bed is almost too small for him as he shifts, widens his stance, as though seeking something. The thin quilt slides off his knees and slips down his shins to his ankles, inadvertently granting her full view of his most private parts. 

Her face burns with desire and shame at the sight of his crotch and she crosses herself as another pained sound escapes him. She’s never been this close to a naked male before and despite the days — weeks — of him lying here, nude and spread-out, the distended twin globes of his testicles dangling against his buttocks, the dark nest of curling coarse hair at the root of his long, flaccid penis, she is still riveted, a _dirtybadwrong_ heat pooling low within her even after all this time of being his sole caregiver. She oughtn’t feel this way; she’s stronger than this. Pure. He’s suffering, though, and she’s taken the vows of service. 

She goes to his side, pulls the blanket back over his wasted frame before he’s chilled, and he straightens his legs again, prominent brow furrowing in confusion at the change in routine. She sits on the edge of the bed, and surveys him. The sheets he's lying on are limp and yellowed, and she doesn’t relish the task of changing the linens, but she’s careful not to let her distaste show; it is not his fault his body is so weak. She reaches out and strokes a matted, sweaty lock from his forehead and the contact makes him turn his face toward her. Fixing sunken, glittering eyes on her, the flesh surrounding them reddened and stretched too tight over sharp cheekbones, he snakes out his tongue, passes it along cracked lips. Blood oozes sluggishly from a split. Sores, raw and scabbed, pebble one corner of his mouth, spreading down to his chin like bad acne. 

It’s a sight very different from the first time she’d met him; then, he could’ve been called handsome. 

**::: ::: :::**

He’d come to them on a Thursday in June, the same way all the others had; on foot, drenched to the skin, unable to go any further. They’d taken him in, relieved him of his burden, and offered him food. He’d eaten, hungrily, but refused the seconds offered to him, and then disappeared into the vestibule with the Reverend Mother for hours. Toward midnight, just before vespers, she’d been summoned and, upon entering the tiny office, she’d seen that he’d been crying; his eyes swollen and red-rimmed, cheeks wet despite the tissues balled in his fist. There was a cell phone — glaring and shiny and incongruous in the sacred surroundings — on the desk that she hadn’t been able to stop staring at. Reverend Mother’d had to call her name several times before she’d startled and hastily went to assist their guest from his chair. He’d moved slowly, his frame slumped with an exhaustion that had clearly been more than physical. She’d sensed, then, that his tiredness came from someplace far deeper than any of them could ever touch and she wondered if what they had to offer would be enough.

Not speaking her doubts as to the futility of their undertaking and, as she’d seen her Sisters and Brothers do with the others, she first took him to the showers, deserted now that all others were at prayers. He’d been shy, modest, not wanting to strip before her, but with gentle coaxing she’d convinced him that it was all right, that he wasn’t her first. It’d been a lie, of course, and one that she confessed later, prostrating in naught but her shift on the cold stone floor before the Sacred Cross, but it’d worked. He’d taken off his clothes, threadbare and worn, and gotten into the hot shower. She’d thrown out his garments, of course, concealing her shame and horrified fascination at seeing, touching, something that had lain so intimately against skin that hadn’t been purified.

When he’d finished and dried himself off, she’d guided him to the narrow rubber-padded bench, already cushioned further with warmed towels from the dryer, and instructed him to lie on his back, legs drawn up and braced shoulder-width apart, knees to chest, buttocks raised and exposed. Wordlessly, he’d done as she’d asked; movements apprehensive, and she’d stilled him with a touch to his flat, muscular belly — the give beneath her hand had been a surprise; she’d expected it to be hard — and a murmured “You must be cleansed.” He’d become docile and pliant at that reminder, even though she could sense his anxiety. She’d unwound the long tubing, aware of him watching her every move, checked the small plastic nozzle for cracks, and clamped the tube to the heavy, swollen bag. She’d had to stand on her tiptoes to secure the red rubber bottle to the hook bolted to the tiled wall for this express purpose, and brought the thin spout to his anus. Taking a fortifying breath, she’d placed one hand against his tense flesh — it’d been softer, smoother than she expected — and spread his buttocks apart. She brought the tip to the puckered divot of flesh and pushed it in. It’d met resistance and, then, with a slight pop that she felt rather than heard as he inhaled, it was locked in, his sphincter tight around the narrowed neck of the applicator.

He’d made a soft, unhappy sound of protest as she pushed the tube further into him and tugged gently at it to make sure it wouldn’t leak but he didn’t reach down, didn’t ask questions. She’d flicked the clamp open and he’d gasped at the sudden rush of water into his rectum. It was the shock, the unexpectedness of it, she knew, more than the actual sensation that’d made him go rigid. Nonetheless, she’d adjusted the clamp, slowing the flow, and he visibly relaxed. The enema was a small one — only a couple of quarts, nothing like the four to six she took daily — and mild, barely containing any solution in the warmed water, but it would do as a start, an introduction to the regimen that would set him on the path of purity, inside and out. 

The procedure had taken longer than she’d expected, especially given his size, with several pauses when she’d had to stop the flow and tease away his cramps with gentle palpitations of her hand against his taut, heated flesh, explaining that the instinct to hold his breath through the pain made it worse, that he should pant slowly instead, and, once, to coach him through an intense urge to defecate that’d made him vociferously beg for the commode, but he’d gotten through it, taking in all the water. When the bag finally emptied fully into him, hanging deflated and limp from its hook, she’d left in the tubing and nozzle and helped him turn slowly onto his right side, his back to the wall. He’d gasped, gripped at the sleeve of her habit as the sloshing redistributed, settled, within him. She’d rolled one of the towels — cooled now — and placed it under his head before repositioning him; drawing up his left leg and straightening the right. A tightening flickered over his features as his hand stole to his pubic bone, settling lightly on the swell there.

“Fifteen minutes,” she’d told him and demonstrated how he should rub his belly from left to right to ease the worst of the cramps and pressure and to move the solution further into his bowels. “It’s just air trapped in you,” she’d explained again about the cramps. “It’s normal. The massaging will help.”

He’d borne the long wait with a stoicism she hadn’t expected, merely asking her with increasing frequency for the time. For her part, she didn’t leave his side, reminding him to keep palpating his lower abdomen in counterclockwise motions and to breathe through his mouth as discomfort played across his face in tiny twitches.

He’d nearly wept when she’d indicated that the fifteen minutes were over and tugged out the tubing and nozzle, firmly commanding him to hold everything in. He’d nearly been undone, then, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes wild, but she’d been ready, pressing a thick pad of towels against his buttocks, pressing a finger between them to push against his anus.

“Hold it,” she’d snapped, not intending to be unkind, as he shifted tremblingly upright to his feet, his whole body clenching to avoid losing any of the liquid. Then, with her assistance, thighs pressed together, he began shuffling towards the row of stalls, stifled mewls escaping his throat every few steps. Long before they’d reached the toilets, he was wincing at the effort it took to fight the instinct to stop moving and let go of the pressure swirling in his full rectum. She’d remembered well the first time she’d ever taken in water and how impossibly far release had seemed, the heaviness in her pelvis, and offered him reassurance as she pushed him onwards. She didn’t remove the padded fabric from his backside as they made their slow, persistent way to relief. Escorting him into the large wheelchair-accessible stall, she finally withdrew her hand, discarding the pad to provide a counterbalance to the unnatural weight pulled low within him by gravity and movement and lowered him, shuddering and sweating, onto the toilet. “Give it a moment. Sometimes it doesn’t happen right away. It’s normal.” She whispered as she let her hands linger on his glistening flesh for a moment, steadying him until she was sure he could balance without assistance and offered him quiet praise before picking up the towels — she’d been pleased and proud that there’d been only a single nickel-sized light-brown watery spot — from the floor and granting him the privacy he'd so clearly needed.

As he voided, she’d used the time to sanitize and set away the supplies for later use. When he’d finally emerged from the stall nearly a half an hour later, he’d been pale and shaky but calm. She’d allowed him to take a second shower, then, remembering the kindness and dignity offered her, to wash away the sensation of being so soiled and hollowed-out, before slipping a long, knee-length nightshirt of creamy soft muslin, the sort the Brothers wore, over his head. She’d combed his wet hair — longer, silkier, and shinier than her own — with her fingers and slid flat, soft suede clogs on his feet, kneeling before him, as the Christ must have surely done. Once dressed, she’d guided him, aware of how enervated and empty he must feel if her own experience was any indication, to his bed where she’d pulled the covers over him, the way a mother would a child. After a moment, she steps into the hall, opens the adjacent bathroom door ajar to make it easier for him to find in the dark should the need arise.

“Rest well,” she’d told him from the doorway, her hand hovering over the switch. His eyes already half-mast but he was still tracking her watchfully. “ _Beati pauperes spiritu_ ,” she’d whispered as she turned off the dim light.

**::: ::: :::**

Shaking off the memory, she reaches beside her and fishes a facecloth from the chipped porcelain basin, wringing it out with a squeeze of her fist before bringing it to his face. Dabbing it along his forehead that still makes her think of the _Homo Sapiens_ renditions she’d seen in _National Geographic_ as a child, she tracks down one hollowed cheek, his long elegant neck to rest it against his prominent clavicle for a moment, resisting the urge to bring the heavy silver crucifix forever hung around her throat to her lips, to reaffirm her vows and to resist the wiles of the Dark One. She mustn’t give in. Lust is the way of the Devil.

But, then, so is gluttony.

She folds back the quilt to the foot of the bed. His exposed flesh, furred with soft down, instantly pimples and he shivers. She doesn’t move for a moment, taking him in. He’s skeletal; all lean limbs with the muscle whittled away, ribs poking prominently through tissue-thin flesh. A pulse twitches at the base of his throat, the translucent skin there fluttering with each heartbeat, and she brings the freshly soaked terrycloth to it, slides it over broad shoulders, pectorals, taking care not to brush his sensitive nipples. She can’t stop staring at them, all flattened and wide and dark, erect in the chill; nothing at all like her small pink ingrown ones that are still blunt, rounded points like that of a pubescent girl’s despite cresting thirty. Swabbing across his abdomen, she feels the sharp jut of his hips, the hard flare of his iliac crest pressing against the flesh, the hollow as it dips towards his pelvis. She lingers at his waist, the cloth in close proximity to the cleft left by the life-giving cord that connects all children to their mother. His waist is smaller, narrower than hers and she feels a hot coil of envy heat her unspoken folds from where her monthly blood flows. Surreptitiously, still sponging him, she brings one hand to her crotch, slides it between her legs and presses at her damp, longing softness through the thick rough woolen skirt of her habit. The painted Jesus with livid red streaks down his temples, stares down reproaching and judgmental from his Sacred Cross. She withdraws. There will have to be fasting and flagellation tonight.

One must be pure. Purity was the way of the Lord.

Beneath her hand, his abdominal muscles clench and she hears the simultaneous gurgle of his empty stomach. He moans, low and soft, and she helps him roll onto his side towards her, where he promptly draws up his knees to his belly, wrapping his arms around his middle. She lifts the knee closest to her higher and he lets out a pained, stifled sound. She knows the movement must’ve hurt him and mumbles an apology as she wipes the dangling, distended flesh between his legs, sliding the cloth back to his testes. As she cleans him, she jostles the oval, weighted organs. He whines, cants his hips toward her, but she pulls away before he can go further.

He must be emptied of all lust and desires, laid bare before the Lord. He is their last hope. The others had failed.

She turns to the nightstand, where she dips the cloth, dirtied by his impurity, into the basin, adds more cold water from the waiting pitcher, and brings the rag, dripping, to his buttocks. Before, his cheeks had been rounded, but now they’re carved down to the bones and ligaments of his hips. She makes note of the new sores in his flesh as she bathes him gently. The sting of harsh soap on raw skin makes him grunt. She rinses, moves on to safer territory: his back. She pauses, as she always does, at the ugly purple keloid scar in the center of his spine and wonders how he survived such a wound. By any stretch of the imagination, it should’ve killed him. Or at the very least rendered him paralyzed. Instead he is here, still breathing, still whole, and if that isn’t a sign of His Grace, she doesn’t know what is.

He stiffens and she curls her hand on his hipbone, offering him contact. The bone is too sharp, too prominent. After a long, tense moment, he lets out a ragged breath and relaxes beneath her.

“Please,” he croaks, his voice a rough whisper.

She knows what he wants, craves, and she dreads the heartbreaking look he will give her when she rejects him. It’s really for his own good, even though he can’t see it just yet. He will, though. She can sense the darkness, the evil that crawls through his veins, the whispers of sweet vile nothings that slide between muscle and skin, bone and cartilage and sinew.

It’s the same evil that courses through her own arteries and threatens to overtake her.

Her fingers twitch to explore her secret place, to probe the fever-hot itch that has settled low within her that seeps into the soft fabric of her undergarments in wet pulses.

“No,” she tells him before he can open his mouth to plead with her again. She reaches out and strokes his dark chin-length hair. It is still longer than hers but she no longer envies it; unlike when he first came, it is dry, brittle, and, soon, like all the others before him, it will thin. “Not yet,” she amends in the face of his crushing disappointment. She continues, reminding him, “This is the hardest part.”

Once he would’ve asked her why, demanded answers of her. Now, he simply closes his eyes in defeat.

There’s a knock and then the door opens, revealing a man dressed in a long, floor-length gray-black habit. He doesn’t enter the room. It wouldn’t do to taint all of them. It is enough that she’d been soiled. She stands.

“Is he prepared?”

She lowers her head. “Yes, Brother,” she whispers. “He is ready for the ritual.” She raises her eyes and he is gone. She knows that it is time. She stands over the figure on the bed and gently slips both hands into his armpit, eases him upright. He cries out sharply as he’s manhandled, curls over his stomach. She waits a few moments, until his gasping has evened out again. She drapes one of his arms across both of her shoulders and pulls him to his feet. The covers slip away, exposing his nudity, and there’s a soft moan as he shuffles from the bed, his wasted legs quivering. His face contorts with the pain of moving. He’s far taller than her and the height difference makes them stagger. He grunts, straightens, taking on more of his own weight, and allows her to bear him out of the rank room.

The stink of sweat and sick clings to his skin, pores, as they walk down the cold stone hallways. She can see the rough stones hurt his feet from the way he can’t really pick them up, shuffling every few steps. She hears the soft sounds he makes when he stubs his toes or makes them stumble.

First they stop in the bathroom, one much farther than the one kitty-corner to his room, where he urinates into a beaker, bracing himself against a wall as she crouches before him. In one hand, she holds the long, thin bottle, and with the other, she guides his smooth, circumcised glans to the opening. His head lolls on his chest as she strokes the length of his penis from base to tip and back before manipulating it in light squeezes. The stiffening between her fingertips makes him moan and it is a slow breath before he can relax enough to release his water. Through the clear glass, she can see his output is sparse and deep gold in color. _Dehydration_. She will need to make sure he gets sufficient fluids. Otherwise Abbot and Reverend Mother might get angry. She wipes him clean with a soft cloth but doesn’t offer him clothes. He shivers. She wonders, abstractly, as they resume their travel down the corridor and stairs, to the chapel, if that was what went wrong with the others.

By the time they reach the red, candlelit chapel, he is shaking from exhaustion. She guides him to the center of the room where she lowers him, naked as the first man, to the stone floor as a chant begins among her Brothers and Sisters, low and haunting. Crouching before him, she sings the words along with the familiar prayer that never ceased to comfort, her voice serviceable and plain compared to the others: “ _Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum…_ ”[1]

He raises his head as she places her hand on his shoulder, fixes feverish eyes on her, pinning her in place. His color is high in a way she doesn’t like, chapped lips still parted, his breath sawing. He reaches out, grips her wrist with an iron grasp, his fingernails digging into her tender flesh as he drags himself onto his knees, sitting back on his feet, penis heavy and flaccid and curled along his thigh. He doesn’t break eye contact as he finishes the _Our Father_ along with her in pitch-perfect Latin, his pronunciation and inflection impeccable: “ _et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo._ ”[2]

“Amen,” she breathes. He doesn’t echo her and releases her wrist. The fact he’d chosen to speak the words of forgiveness and salvation doesn’t escape her. It is a sign.

She turns, accepts a glass of clear liquid from one of the Brothers. She holds it with both hands, offers it to him. He hesitates for a moment, but thirst wins out and he all but snatches the water from her, the first sign of sustenance offered him all day, downing its contents in long gulps, heedless of her warnings to not go so quickly, barely stopping to breathe. Just like the others. When it’s emptied, he lets out an unhappy sound of discomfort, grimacing as he palms his stomach while she takes the empty glass from him. There’s a film of clear, viscous syrup at the bottom. She exchanges it for another glass of water.

“Slow,” she tells him. “You don’t want to make yourself sick.” This time he obeys, taking short sips with long breaks in between. He’s roughly halfway through when he stops, frowns. She takes the glass as he closes his mouth, squeezes his eyes shut as he swallows convulsively. After a moment, he belches twice, deep and loud, which elicits an immediate "excuse me" as he settles once again, hunching over himself, ashamed and apologetic.

She waits. After a moment: “Think you can finish?” She asks as she holds out the water. He shakes his head at her, seems to think twice just as she’s about to pass it off, and makes eye contact.

It takes him even longer, but he eventually drains it. The Brother is carrying away the empty glass when her charge presses his hand lightly against his upper abdomen, keeps it there, breathing shallowly. She knows he must feel full, maybe even bloated. He hasn’t taken in so much, so fast at one time in days. He sways where he sits, paling as sweat beads on his forehead, upper lip. She stands, helps him to his feet. She’s gentler with the transition of sitting to standing this time, but it still doesn’t stop him from stifling a groan and in the flickering candlelight, she swears she can see the faintest swell distending his belly from all the water he’s taken in. Twenty ounces of fluid doesn’t amount to much — at least not after being able to take four-quart enemas — nonetheless, the short walk to the soft pallet, made up with purling cotton flannel, is agony for him. It's obvious from the way he curls over, his hand never straying from his navel as he drags his feet, pressing more of his bony weight on her shoulders with each step, he’s in misery. His stomach burbles and he burps again as she lays him on his side. He immediately curls on himself, his hand rubbing restlessly against the invisible roundness as though to relieve the ache. _Clockwise_ , she notes with a secret smile. He will be empty soon and the ritual would be able to commence.

Covering him with the tattered flannelette sheet, she tells him, “Try to rest.” And his eyes slide shut at her command. She sets up the deep, round enameled chamber pot, without its lid, by him in close proximity since he will need it soon, and draws the folding screen to afford him some privacy.

Even as she moves back into the congregation, her voice joining in the soaring rise and trilling fall of _Agnus Dei_ she can still hear the rasp and hitch of his breathing, the soft whines of pain he makes as the harsh laxative courses through his empty system. As she kneels on the marble, she has the sudden vision of the fluid rushing through him to his bladder and bowels, sped by the motion and direction of his massage. It makes a pulse of wetness soak into the cotton between her legs. She bows her head as she hears him pass wind. He is being purged, cleansed of all impurities.

It takes longer than she expects, his moans growing in frequency until the sounds of waste plashing against metal starts. In the silence of introspective prayer, she listens to the wet sound of him voiding, embarrassingly loud, punctuated by skunky flatulence and quiet, stifled mewls. Then it all stops. When the stillness stretches on for five minutes, ten, she goes to him. He’s back on the pallet, kneeling on all fours, weight on his forearms, his too-thin frame wracked with shivers. He doesn’t lift his head, keeping his face buried in the crook of one elbow as he stiffens and arches his back before curling low over his knees against the cramps, tilting his body downwards until his broad shoulders are supporting his frame, clearly at a loss how to deal with the turmoil still assaulting his insides. She can see, count, each vertebrae as he curves his back again, displaying himself, and she takes in his flushed, inflamed anus. She doesn’t comment as she wipes him clean with a soft, damp cloth. Her cool touch on his heated privates makes him gasp and she doesn’t apologize. There’s a groan, a mumble that sounds like “not again” and she’s helping him squat above the filled commode. Nothing comes out.

“You’re clean,” she tells him as she helps him stand even though he still hasn’t looked up, hasn’t allowed her to meet his gaze. Instantly, he hunches over his abdomen, seeking relief, and there is another noisy rumble of gas that makes him freeze up and blush in shame. She doesn’t comment, molds her touch to his belly. It’s tense, taut, the muscles fluttering to regain some semblance of control. She kneads the flesh in steady circles, feels some of the bloat loosen, release, as he slumps against her as the last of his waste suddenly leaves him, but whether of relief or weakness, she isn’t entirely sure. It doesn't really matter.

She walks him from behind the partition back to the chapel, guiding him past her robed Brothers and Sisters to front and center of attention. He shudders, balking at the sight of the blue plastic wading pool before the altar, beneath the large Sacred Cross. It’s jarring, all wrong with its printed purple-and-green sea creatures among the long, drippy red tapers and shallow white votives. He’s too weak without her assistance, though, and cannot resist as she helps him step over the low lip to ease him down. She allows him to curl up fetal, chin tucked to chest, knees drawn up and tucked beneath him, arms limp at his sides. He exhales raggedly as his body incrementally slumps into the familiar posture, buttocks lifting in automatic anticipation.

He cringes, goes rigid as she settles her hand on his lower back, pressing him back down. “ _Beati pauperes spiritu_ ,” she reminds him.

He rotates his face toward hers as she withdraws her touch. He looks wrecked. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he translates, his voice a rough croak.

“For theirs shall be the Kingdom of Heaven,” she finishes as she steps back.

He raises his head, disbelief and impossible longing warring in his expression. It makes her heart clench to see such doubt, such hope in his red-rimmed, irritated eyes. She knows that look. It’s the one they all carry deep inside. Not for the first time, she sends up a prayer that he will be one of their successes, that he will join their ranks. She lowers her head in deference as the Brother walks past her, bearing a long green garden hose.

Her charge squirms on the floor of the pool, breath rasping with his increasing panic. And she wants to go to him, to explain what is about to happen, but she doesn’t. It is better this way. It’s how it must be.

A valve opens, and water rushes out. It must’ve been cold, the pressure painful, because he cries out and topples to his side. He’s rinsed down from head to foot, front and back, not an inch of skin left untouched, until the spray passes back up the length of his legs to focus on his buttocks. He jerks, shudders, and the torment stops.

As the Brother winds the hose back up in long green loops, bearing it away, she crouches beside him, holding a dryer-warm towel. He flinches as she wipes the coarse, hot cloth against his flesh and shifts, trying to cower from her. He’s too weak to do much more than a wriggle and the brief movement must’ve tired him because then he’s submitting to her careful ministrations, leaning into the soft warmth that dabs away the icy droplets. She allows her touch to linger against the hard ladder of his ribs, slide further to his concaved but somehow still-puffy stomach.

She glances from his sharp angles to his face and sees him watching her through heavy-lidded eyes. She brings the towel to his cheek, wipes the water leaking from his eye. “Soon,” she whispers. “You must be strong. This is the last part.” She drops the towel beside him, allowing it to absorb the small pool of water beneath him and accepts a copper bowl of scented oil.

She dips her fingers into the slickness. It is warm. “ _Gloria Patri_ ,” she chants, anointing his forehead. “ _Et Filio_ ,” she hesitates, hovering above his pectoral before pressing her hand to his side, the same place as Christ’s sacred wound. She pauses to scoop up more oil. “ _Et Spiritui Sancto_ ,” she palms the center of his chest, spreads her hand, and her little finger brushes against the bumpy edge of the darker flesh surrounding his nipple. He twitches. “ _Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum_.” [3] There’s another pause and there’s a low echo of “Amen” from the crowd behind her.

She raises the bowl high above him and upends it. The oil pours out over his torso and she slicks him with it, spreading the sweet, heady grease until not an inch of him is uncovered. She rubs it into the soles of his feet, the palms of his hands, between and around all ten fingers and toes. She accepts a refilled bowl and massages its contents into his scalp, slicking his hair flat, back from his face, working it in behind his ears. She lingers on his trunk, paying careful attention to his nipples, and trails her slippery hands down his chest to his navel. There, she rims his belly button, letting the oil drip in, which makes him squirm at the discomfort, and slides further south. She skirts his penis, smoothing down his pubic hair, coating the delicate, sensitive flesh of his testes. She slips her hand between his thighs, settling her other on his caved-in abdomen, sliding back to his perineum, crack. Her touch makes him buck and she takes advantage of his slight movement to smear her hands clean against the twin globes of his buttocks.

She withdraws her hands and she takes him in, beautiful and glistening in the candlelight, his shivers making his shadow lengthen and quiver. His ribs expands and contracts with each shallow, rapid breath as she ventures a hand closer to his side. He flinches, calms as she makes contact.

“Come on,” she whispers and helps him to stand once again. He’s slippery in her hold and threatens to slide out of her grasp but he steadies himself and grips her shoulders with hands that leave greasy prints on her tunic. He steps carefully over the edge of the wading pool and onto the large queen-size wool blanket that had been laid out for him. She lowers him and, as they’ve gone over earlier that day, he crawls, wordlessly, painfully, without assistance to the center and curls on himself, lying once again on his side. His hand steals to his belly as though it still aches and his emaciated frame shudders as he presses his thighs together, draws up his knees. She can almost imagine the rattle of his bones as he shivers. She steps off the blanket and picks up the corner. Three others move in and do the same.

“Are you ready?” one of them speaks and she waits. It’s all up to him. She’d warned him about this, how this last stage is the hardest and that, no matter what happens, there’s no going back.

“Yes,” he croaks, his voice feeble and dry and high.

There’s a nod and the four of them move together, gathering up the sides and clenching them in their hands until the blanket forms a sack, a womb around him. At first it’s quiet and still, save for his breathing. After what seems like a long time but must’ve been minutes, the panting within the blanket cocoon picks up, becoming raspier, more frenetic. Then he starts fighting. He pushes, writhes against the rough fabric, but they continue to hold it. He’s weak and the effort must tire him out because he stills. Then he claws at her legs, kicking out and struggling for the opening, to birth himself. She hopes he doesn’t stop, that he has enough strength to best them and succeed in freeing himself. She clenches at the fabric tighter; he has to do it himself.

Then there’s a shout, a commotion, and candles topple over, extinguishing instantly and spilling hot wax across the altar, red and white running together but cooling before they can mix and turn pink. Then there’s a whirl and two of the sides fall. Before she can register what has happened, she’s shoved, pain flaring hot and bright across her midsection. She blinks down at the bright red pouring from her belly and brings her hands to it. They sink in. She gapes, coughs and feels the sour tang of blood in the back of her mouth. She leans back against the wall, blinking. There are dead strewn about the chapel, but not nearly as many as she expected. Both Reverend Mother and Abbott are lying in glistening maroon pools, faces frozen in shock.

Turning her attention to the center of the room, she sees someone helping her charge stand, wrapping the blanket around him to conceal his nudity.

“C’mon, Sammy,” she hears. “Let’s get you outta here.”

She sees their new arrival — shorter than the one she’d nursed but still tall, stockier, fierce possessiveness rolling off his tense frame in waves — pick up a bloodied, broad-bladed scimitar from the floor and wipe it against the blanket and shoulder his taller burden with an ease that comes of long practice. They’re close, that much is obvious. He glances around the empty room, clenching his jaw with unreleased fury. As her vision clouds, she knows with startling clarity that he’s the righteous one they’d been waiting for and wonders how they could’ve not known that they’d had the wrong one all along.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread.  
> [2] Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.  
> [3] Glory Be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, ever shall be, world without end.


End file.
